Not only poorly maintained highways make up the Brazilian road bottleneck. The inspection conditions are also responsible for the slowness of cargo transport on the roads. Weight control, essential for the safety and conservation of highways, is slow and inefficient. It is estimated that the national cargo fleet is stopped 800 hours a year at weighing stations. In 2012, around 10,8 million vehicles were inspected in the country for weight and 528 fines were issued. By July 2013, there had been approximately 6 million checks and 359 notifications.
To speed up the process, the National Department of Transport Infrastructure (DNIT) has been implementing the National Weighing Plan. In its first stage, 73 new scales were installed: 42 fixed, operating 24 hours a day, and 31 mobile, operating 8 hours a day. Another 94 fixed and 67 mobile posts are planned for the second stage of the plan, but the bidding process was suspended by the Federal Comptroller General.
For Bruno Batista, executive director of the National Transport Confederation, the quick implementation of the plan is important to make the highways more efficient and reduce spending on federal roads. “If this is done efficiently, the production flow is faster and more resources are left for maintenance works and expansion of the network”, he says.
Batista, however, considers that the effort is still insufficient to meet the country's demand. “In 2013, there were only 117 scales in operation for more than 60 kilometers of federal highways, and without control of deviations”, he laments. “And given the historical pace of budget execution, unfortunately, we are not optimistic.”
DNIT evaluates that the first stage of the National Weighing Plan was positive, despite the flaws identified in the operation by the audits of the CGU and the Federal Court of Accounts. According to the department, it was precisely the pros and cons of the first phase that allowed the development of a new concept of heavy inspection, the Piaf (Integrated Automated Inspection Posts). “Brazil will be the first country to adopt the concept of automation and monitoring and operation through Operational Control Centers for overweight inspection processes”, informs the DNIT.
The system will allow inspection of vehicles in motion, at the operating speed defined for the segment to be inspected – bus or truck. As a result, 93% of the freight vehicle and bus fleet, which today travel within the permitted weight limit, will not need to reduce speed to be inspected. Only overweight vehicles will be driven to the inspection yard. DNIT's expectation is to inspect 100% of the fleet circulating in the corridors where the new model will be implemented, allowing to concentrate efforts on vehicles that actually present some kind of problem.
With Piaf, it will also be possible to increase the speed of vehicles on weighing scales, from 5 km/h to 12 km/h, which will facilitate the process. “It's difficult to maintain such a low speed constantly during weighings”, says Rogério Cunha, president of the Association of Road Transport in Brazil.
Source: Valor Econômico
By Carlos Vasconcellos | From Rio
